Geoffrey Hopkirk



Geoffrey Theodore Hopkirk, D.Eng., is a character appearing in Ars Atomica, and is a member of the Centre.

Description
Doctor Hopkirk is a human male, who stands 185.42 centimeters (6 feet, 1 inch) tall and weighs 78 kilograms (171.9 pounds). He has dark brown hair and dark brown eyes.

Pre-War
Born in London on 9 January 2061 and raised in Woking, Surrey, in the pre-War United Kingdom, Hopkirk was an only child. His father Leonard was a member of the Civil Service who worked in London, and his mother was an emergency nurse at Woking Community Hospital. He was a talented student, and loved his mathematics and science courses the most. After completion of secondary, he qualified for a full scholarship to Cambridge, and attended Pembroke College from 2079 to 2086. He graduated in June 2086 with his PhD in energy engineering, specializing in fission and fusion power.

After graduating from Cambridge, Hopkirk was accepted for employment in September of 2086 with the engineering team of the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire, in South West England. In 2092, he was part of a DSTL team sent to Toronto to work in concert with teams from DARPA and Defense Research & Development Canada. Gathering in the advanced energy laboratory at the University of Toronto, their aim was to further development of a compact fusion generator design. He was at the laboratory working on the day when the Great War began, on 19 November 2093 (a Thursday), and evacuated to the university bunker as the sirens sounded.

On the sixth day in the bunker, Hopkirk was assisting with an assessment of the life support systems in the maintenance section when a critical fault in the cooling system caused coolant from the cryogenic tanks to be pumped directly into the compartment. Hopkirk and his two associates attempted to escape, but were unable to do so because the automatic containment system had sealed the door to prevent the coolant from escaping and contaminating the entire bunker. Trapped, they were frozen by the gas which flooded the compartment.

Post-War
Hopkirk remained frozen in the bunker until being discovered by a scavenging crew from the nearby settlement of New Toronto on 1 May 2334. Realizing the three may still be alive, and curious to learn more about them, the crew took the preserved bodies of Hopkirk and his two compatriots to the clinic back in the settlement, where the doctor made efforts to revive all them. Despite the best efforts of the doctor and his team, however, only Hopkirk was successfully revived, as it would be discovered during the thawing process that the other two had died from exposure within minutes of losing consciousness and being frozen, having apparently been much closer to the coolant leak.

After overcoming the initial shock of his circumstances and being assured he was all right, Hopkirk learned what had transpired since his accidental freezing. Hopkirk had been in that same exact spot, cryogenically preserved, for 241 years. Thanks to the heavily insulated design of the bunker, the compartment had lost virtually none of its sealed environment and had remained quite cool, and his cryogenic stasis had not been interrupted throughout that entire period. He similarly learned that discovery of the bunker's existance had been a very recent thing, as for years locals had picked over the university's ruins completely unaware a bunker was hidden beneath its sublevel. His being found had been pure chance, as it had only been after discovering a holotape mentioning the bunker in the remains of the old city library that the scavenging crew had opted to visit the hidden facility in search of useful materials to bring back. Hopkirk also learned that of the 164 people who had evacuated to the bunker, he was the only one who survived.

With nothing to anchor him to New Toronto, and with his old life gone, Hopkirk opted to depart the settlement on 13 May and accompany a caravan heading south into the American Wasteland, bound for the Metropolis, formerly known as New York City. He had learned that the ruins of the once vast pre-War city had become home to numerous determined settlements, and that an extensive hub of post-War trade and civilization had developed, despite the rough streets and off-again, on-again conflicts between numerous groups that operate in the area. After about three weeks of travel, the caravan arrived at the northernmost settlement in the Metropolis, a place known as Northtown, formerly North Riverdale, on 3 June. While there, Hopkirk began to hear his first rumors of the fabled Centre, a haven of high technology and advanced science that operated further south, in the old Upper East Side. Hopkirk made his way further south to the settlement at Morris, formerly Port Morris, and it was there that he was first approached by a Centre agent who had been sent to find him, after word of the arrival of this fabled "pre-War man" had spread within hours of his first reaching Northtown.

It wouldn't be until 6 July that Hopkirk acceded to the agent's invitation, and made his way to the Upper East Side, arriving at the settlement of Lenox (formerly Lenox Hill) on 7 July. After being led to the Complex, he was brought inside and met with the Director, who gave him a tour and interviewed him. Learning of his expertise with energy, the organization wasted no time offering him a place among them, and he formally became a member of the Centre on 1 August.

After brief but traditional orientation period, Doctor Hopkirk became a full and official member of the Engineering Department in early September, and has been a part of its efforts ever since. He is presently engaged in work very similar to the last project he did pre-War - the development of a portable, fusion generator for use in scavenging and field operations.

Trivia

 * At 273 years of age, he is the oldest known living person in the American Wastelands, and believed to be the only individual to have lived pre-War who hasn't become a ghoul.
 * He is the only person at the Centre who speaks with a true British accent.

Overview

 * Essential - yes
 * Companion - no
 * Perk - no


 * Merchant - no
 * Doctor - no
 * Rents Bed / Room - no

Quests

 * TBD